Example #1 in point: Bishop M. Thomas Shaw of Massachusetts has himself "abandoned the communion of the Episcopal Church (USA)", by an "open renunciation of the Discipline of the Church" -- exactly as the DBB, on which he sits, has proclaimed that +Mark Lawrence has done. Bishop Shaw, as we know, defied both the marriage canons and the Book of Common Prayer rubrics by interpreting Resolution C056 ("Liturgies for Blessings") adopted by General Convention in 2009 to allow him to authorize clergy in his Diocese to perform same-sex marriages, and then performed such a ceremony himself. According to Bishop Shaw, he and his suffragan bishops are the final authority on what the Canons and Resolutions of General Convention mean in their Diocese. So why is not Bishop Lawrence just as final an authority on the meaning of those same Canons in his Diocese, as well? And how can Bishop Shaw, having made that assertion (which in fact, is entirely correct), now seek to hold Bishop Lawrence liable for the latter's own judgment of the meaning they are to have in his Diocese?

Talk about hypocrisy -- but the members of the DBB (as well as David Booth Beers himself) are immersed in it up to their necks, day in and day out....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • TEC Polity & Canons • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

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